Audiostory - Can Money Buy Happiness?

Can Money Buy Happiness?

Introduction

For most of your life, you have heard the phrase "money cannot buy your happiness". Mostly, it was a way to pacify a begging child, but this value has slowly been engrained into society. I decided to explore this topic because on the surface it seems like an easy question to answer, but there are different ways to answer the question. 

Interviews

I conducted three interviews with three people who had different perspectives on the topic. Bianca Bullock, a journalism major at HPU, believes that this prinicple is generational. She states how older generations like Baby Boomers and Traditionalists typically worked from their early teens up until they retired in their sixties or seventies. She compared this to Millenials and Generation Z members taking more time away from work and school to enjoy their lives as they are living them. She believed that people used to center their lives around working to make money and working.

Vonda Whitted, a data manager at a public NC elementary school, believed that money does not mean you are happy. She used the example of underpaid public school teachers who still do their job wholeheartedly. The teachers are passionate about what they do and do not make a liveable wage, but still find a way to be happy. She also spoke in her interviews about her previous jobs in commercial banking, private banking, and social work.

Denny Slay, a finance major at HPU, also agreed with the notion that money cannot buy happiness but it is something that our society has glamorized. He explains how a capitalistic society has glamorized lavish lifestyles and the need to get rich quick. 

Audio Edits

First, I used markers to label all of the interviews and the questions that I asked. This helped me narrow down which clips I wanted to use together. I used the razor tool to trim the clips to only the bits of information that I needed. After I decided what interveiws to use, I went back and wrote a small script for my personal voice overs. I included introductions for all speakers and moments of reflection to link the clips together. 

I then chose the background music and sound effects for my audiostory. I browsed Free Music Archive until I found a song that was the perfect vibe for the post. The first song I chose was too somber while other songs were more upbeat. I was inspired by the "Electronic Swing" audiostory we listened to in class and decided to include my sound effect in the opening music.

I created my sound effect by dropping a handful of loose change onto my desk. This sound came out very distinguishable and it was clear that the noise was being made by coins.

I organized my clips first by labeling each clip who is speaking and the topic of their clip. I tried to put all of my voice-overs and interviews in the track one slot. I used the track two slot for my sound effect. The third and fourth tracks slots are used for my background music. I added fade-ins and outs on all of the music clips so that the music was not too loud. I also raised the volume on the audio clips that speak during the music so they would be heard. One of my interview clips was quieter than others, so I added a audio filter to amplify his sound. I watched one of the videos given for this skill.

In this clip, there was a background noise so I used the noise reduction feature to remove the noise. I used the healing brush to clean up what was not picked up in the noise reduction. I also used a voice effect on this track to amplify the audio because he was mumbling in this clip.

Conclusion

If I were to do this project over, I would choose a topic that has is more open with the sounds I could use. I struggled to figure out a sound effect to use. Overall, I am pleased with the way this turned out. I thought this audiostory made a lot of progress from my initial podcast. Next time, I would be sure that all of my audio clips were high quality so I would not have to clean up the audio as much.